Hopes by Linda Chapman

It was too soon for him to go. She wasn’t ready to be without him. She started to stroke him again. “Spirit!” she begged. “Come back!”
    Luke crouched down beside her. “It’s over, Ellie.”
    “No…” she started to shake her head. “No!”
    Luke’s arms pulled her close. She stared at him with shocked, wide eyes. He stroked her hair as John held the stethoscope to Spirit’s chest, checking that his heart had stopped. The vet gave a brief nod and then Ellie felt herself start to shake—a dreadful, uncontrollable trembling as a tidal wave of grief engulfed her.
    She couldn’t bear it. “Bring him back!” she sobbed into Luke’s chest. “I want him back!” It didn’t feel long since she had been crying like this for her mom and dad. The old grief and the new mixed together, intense, overwhelming.
    Luke held her tight and let her cry, his strong arms folded around her.

Chapter Nine
    WHEN ELLIE’S TEARS finally dried, Luke took her back to the house. John was already there, talking to Helen. They fell quiet as Ellie came in. She sat down silently at the table.
    John glanced at Luke. “Shall I give you a hand?”
    With a cold shock, Ellie realized he meant with burying Spirit’s body.
    Luke looked at her. “Do you want to be there?” She shook her head. Spirit was gone. She didn’t need to see him being buried.
    “Thanks,” Luke said to John.
    They left Ellie with Helen. “Shall I make you a cup of tea?” Helen asked sympathetically.
    “No, thanks. I’m… I’m going upstairs for a while.” Ellie spoke flatly, her voice sounding like a robot’s.
    “Sure. I’ll be down here if you want me. I’m really sorry, Ellie. We all are.”
    Ellie pulled off her boots and walked up the stairs.
    Reaching her room, she lay down on the bed, curling her knees up to her chest, hugging herself into the tightest ball possible. She felt as though there was a great gaping hole in her, a hole that would never be filled again. Tears started to seep down her cheeks as she thought about Spirit, picturing him, imagining life without him. The pain battered through her.
    She sobbed until her head hurt with crying. Afterwards, she lay there numbly, getting her breath back, noticing the quiet and stillness of the room. She began to think about Spirit again, remembering his whinny, knowing she would never hear it again, never feel his breath on her hands. Within minutes, fresh tears had started.
    Eventually, Ellie exhausted herself and fell into a fitful sleep. She woke up when Luke came into her room to check on her. Sitting up, she stared at him in a daze.
    Not bothering to ask if he could come in, he came over and sat down on the bed. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I’m sorry you had to feel it. I know how tough it is.”
    Anger flared up inside her, fueled by grief. She knew it was unfair, but she felt the overwhelming need to lash out at someone. “You don’t know! How can you?” she cried.
    “I do know. Two of my ponies had to be put down.”
    “Maggie?” said Ellie, remembering that Luke had once told her about his first pony, Maggie—how she had twisted a gut when she had colic.
    “Yes. Then after Maggie I got Sparks and after Sparks, Bella. She was a show jumping pony, a total lunatic in the ring, but I loved her. We were doing really well together but one day the groom turned her out into a different field, one that our neighbor had rented out to us, and when I went to fetch her I found that she was trembling and having fits. She’d been poisoned.”
    “How?” whispered Ellie, distracted for a moment from her own grief.
    Luke’s face was shadowed. “It was just one of those fluke things that sometimes happen with horses. She’d found some cowbane and eaten it. The groom should have checked the field out, but he hadn’t. Cowbane’s deadly. Sometimes horses get better after a few days, but Bella didn’t. She’d eaten too much of it; the fits got worse. She was in so much pain.